Where is the violence in identity-related violence? The generative potentiality of violence in ethno-religious conflict and mass purging in Indonesia

Geger Riyanto

doi:10.21831/jss.v16i1.34715

Where is the violence in identity-related violence? The generative potentiality of violence in ethno-religious conflict and mass purging in Indonesia

Geger Riyanto, University of Heidelberg, Institut für Ethnologie,, Germany

10.21831/jss.v16i1.34715

Abstract

This article argues that we have to address the generative potentiality of violence in drawing a rigorous depiction of identity-related violence. Works on identity-related violence often explain the violence as culminating from the perpetrators’ sense of identity. Even though to some extent such an explanation sheds light on the perpetrators’ motivation, it is prone to reducing the actuality of violence to a mere epiphenomenon. In actual circumstances of conflict and purging, the frightening and engrossing horror of violence convincingly imposes the antagonistic discursive boundary of self and other on the involved subject’s senses. As an efficacious embodiment of identity, violence also entails the subjects perpetually performing it in a way that reinforces the facticity of the fictive categories of identity and eventually escalates the violence. This article makes its case through an examination of two incidents of massive violence in Indonesia: the 1966-69 communists purging and the 1999-2002 ethno-religious conflict in Maluku.

Keywords

Identity-Related Violence, Identity, Ethno-Religious Conflict, Mass Purging, Indonesia

Full Text:

PDF

References

Ansori, M. H., Sukandar, R., Peranto, S., Karib, F., Cholid, S., & Rasyid, I. (2014). Segregasi, Kekerasan, dan Kebijakan Rekonstruksi Pasca-Konflik di Ambon Jakarta: The Habibie Center.

Argenti, N., & Schramm, K. (2010). Introduction: Remembering Violence: Anthropological Perspectives on Intergenerational Transmission. In N. Argenti & K. Schramm (Eds.), Remembering Violence: Anthropological Perspectives on Intergenerational Transmission (pp. 1-39). New York: Bergahn Books.

Bakker, L. (2015). Illegality for the General Good? Vigilantism and Social Responsibility in Contemporary Indonesia. Critique of Anthropology, 35(1), pp. 78-93. doi:10.1177/0308275X14557092

Bartmanski, D., & Alexander, J. C. (2012). Materiality and Meaning in Social LIfe: Toward an Iconic Turn in Cultural Sociology. In J. C.

Alexander, D. Bartmanski & B. Giesen (Eds.), Iconic Power: Materiality and Meaning in Social Life. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bjorkhagen, M. (2013). The Conflict in the Moluccas: Local Youths' Perceptions Contrasted to Previous Research (Malmo University.

Bloch, M. (1992). Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bloor, D. (1999). Anti-Latour. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 30(1), pp. 81-112.

Braithwaite, J. (2013). Maluku: Anomie to Reconciliation. In E.

Aspinall, R. Jeffrey & A. J. Regan (Eds.), Diminishing Conflicts in Asia and the Pacific: Why Some Subside and Others Don't (pp. 37-48). London: Routledge.

Bräuchler, B. (2004). Islamic Radicalism Online: The Moluccan Mission of the Laskar Jihad in Cyberspace. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 15(3), pp. 267-285. doi:doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2004.tb00098.x

Cribb, R. (1990). Problems in the Historiography of the Killings in Indonesia. In R. Cribb (Ed.), The Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966 (pp. 1-43). Clayton: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies Monash University.

Cribb, R. (2001). Genocide in Indonesia, 1965-1966. Journal of Genocide Research, 3(2), pp. 219-239. doi:doi.org/10.1080/713677655

Deng, F. M. (1995). War of Visions: Conflict of Identities in the Sudan Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.

Duncan, C. R. (2014). Violence and Vengeance: Religious Conflict and its Aftermath in Eastern Indonesia Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Durkheim, E. ((1895) 1982). Rules of Sociological Method (W. D. Halls, Trans.) New York: The Free Press.

Durkheim, E. ((1897) 2002). Suicide: A Study in Sociology (J. A. Spaulding & G. Simpson, Trans.) London: Routledge.

George, K. (1996). Showing Signs of Violence: The Cultural Politics of a Twentieth-Century Headhunting Ritual Berkeley: University of California Press.

Girard, R. (1977). Violence and the Sacred (P. Gregory, Trans.) Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Hartmann, E. (2017). Violence: Constructing an Emerging Field of Sociology. International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 11, pp. 1-9. doi:0.4119/UNIBI/ijcv.623

Hasan, N. (2006). Laskar Jihad: Islam, Militancy, and the Quest for Identity in Post-New Order Indonesia Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program.

Hasworo, R. T. (2004). Penangkapan dan Pembunuhan di Jawa Tengah Setelah G-30-S. In J. Roosa, A. Ratih & H. Farid (Eds.), Tahun yang Tak Pernah Berakhir: Memahami Pengalaman Korban 65 (pp. 25-59). Jakarta: Lembaga Studi dan Advokasi Masyarakat (Elsam).

Hearman, V. (2017). Contesting Victimhood in the Indonesian Anti-Communist Violence and Its Implications for Justice for the Victims of the 1968 South Blitar Trisula Operation in East Java. Journal of Genocide Research, 19(4), pp. 512-529. doi:doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2017.1393943

Henare, A., Holbraad, M., & Wastell, S. (2007). Introduction: Thinking through Things. In A. Henare, M. Holbraad & S. Wastell (Eds.), Thinking Through Things: Theorising Artefacts Ethnographically (pp. 1-31). London: Routledge.

JR., W. H. S. (2005). Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Juergensmeyer, M. (2000). Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kapferer, B. (1988). Legends of People/Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Kivimaki, T. A. (2012). What Generates, Constitutes and Causes Opportunity-driven Violence? The Case of West Kalimantan. Asian Journal of Political Science, 20(3), pp. 284-303. doi: doi.org/10.1080/02185377.2012.748971

Klinken, G. v. (2007). Communal Violence and Democratization in Indonesia: Small Town Wars London: Routledge.

Levi-Strauss, C. (1969). The Elementary Structures of Kinship (J. H. Bell, J. R. VonSturmer & R. Needham, Trans.) Boston: Beacon Press.

Liem, A. (2004). Perjuangan Bersenjata PKI di Blitar Selatan dan Operasi Trisula. In J. Roosa, A. Ratih & H. Farid (Eds.), Tahun yang Tak Pernah Berakhir: Memahami Pengalaman Korban 65 (pp. 163-200). Jakarta: Lembaga Studi dan Advokasi Masyarakat (Elsam).

Ling, T. S. (2010). G30S 1965, Perang Dingin dan Kehancuran Nasionalisme: Pemikiran Cina Jelata Korban Orba Depok: Komunitas Bambu.

Maalouf, A. (2001). In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong New York: Arcade Publishing.

Marion, J. L. (2010). Certitudes negatives Paris: Grasset.

Massumi, B. (1995). The Autonomy of Affect. Cultural Critique, 31, pp. 83-109.

McGregor, K. (2009). A Reassessment of the Significance of the 1948 Madiun Uprising to the Cold War in Indonesia. Kajian Malaysia, 27(1-2), pp. 85-119.

McVey, R. ((1965) 2006). The Rise of Indonesian Communism Singapore: Equinox Publishing.

Melvin, J. (2015). Documenting genocide. Retrieved Date from http://www.insideindonesia.org/documenting-genocide.

Melvin, J. (2017). Mechanics of Mass Murder: A Case for Understanding the Indonesian Killings as Genocide. Journal of Genocide Research, 19(4), pp. 487-511. doi:doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2017.1393942

Miller, D. (2005). Materiality: An Introduction. In D. Miller (Ed.), Materiality (pp. 1-50). Durham: Duke University Press.

Peluso, N. L. (2006). Passing the Red Bowl: Creating Community Identity through Violence in West Kalimantan, 1967-1997. In C. A. Coppel (Ed.), Violent Conflicts in Indonesia: Analysis, Representation, Resolution (pp. 106-128). London: Routledge.

Pirous, I. (2004). Constructing Iban Identity: The Narratives of Vanishing and Emerging within the Transnational Borderzone of Borneo Island (Master. Nottingham Trent University.

Qurtuby, S. A. (2015). Christianity and Militancy in Eastern Indonesia: Revisiting the Maluku Violence. Southeast Asian Studies, 4(2), pp. 313-339

Reemtsma, J. P. (2012). Trust and Violence: An Essay on a Modern Relationship Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Riches, D. (1986). The Phenomenon of Violence. In D. Riches (Ed.), The Anthropology of Violence. New Jersey: Blackwell.

Robinson, G. (2017). "Down to the Very Roots": The Indonesian Army's Role in the Mass Killings of 1965-66. Journal of Genocide Research, 19(4), pp. 465-486. doi:doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2017.1393935

Rochijat, P. (1985). Am I PKI or Non-PKI? Indonesia, 40, pp. 37-56. doi:cip.cornell.edu/seap.indo/1107007217

Ross, M. H. (2002). Psychocultural Interpretations and Dramas: Identity Dynamics in Ethnic Conflict. Political Psychology, 22(1), pp. 157-178. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00231

Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone Age Economics Chicago: Aldine Atherton Inc.

Sahlins, M. (1985). Islands of History Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Sahlins, M. (1991). The Return of the Event, Again: With Reflections on the Beginnings of the Great Fijian War of 1843 to 1855 between Kingdoms of Bau and Rewa. In A. Biersack (Ed.), Clio in Oceania: Toward a Historical Anthropology. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Scarry, E. (1985). The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World New York: Oxford University Press.

Sen, A. (2008). Violence in Identity. In I. A. Karawan, W. McCormack & S. E. Reynolds (Eds.), Values and Violence: Intangible Aspects of Terrorism (pp. 3-13). New York: Springer.

Shilling, C. (2012). The Body and Social Theory London: SAGE Publications.

Staudigl, M. (2014). Introduction: Topics, Problems, and Potentials of a Phenomenological Analysis of Violence. In M. Staudigl (Ed.), Phenomenologies of Violence (pp. 1-32). Leiden: Brill.

Tambiah, S. J. (1997). Leveling Crowds: Ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia Berkeley: University of California Press.

Volkan, V. (2006). Killing in the Name of Identity: A Study of Bloody Conflicts Charlottesville: Pitchstone Publishing.

Watch, H. R. (1999). Indonesia: The Violence in Ambon. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/ambon/

Wellman JR., J. K., & Tokuno, K. (2004). Is Religious Violence Inevitable? Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 43(3), pp. 291-296. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2004.00234.x

Whitehead, N. (2004). On the Poetics of Violence. In N. Whitehead (Ed.), On the Poetics of Violence (pp. 55-78). Sante Fe: SAR Press.

Wilson, C. (2011). Ethno-Religious Violence in Indonesia: From Soil to God New York: Routledge.

Winn, P. (2000). Banda Burns. Retrieved Date from http://www.insideindonesia.org/banda-burns.

Young, K. R. (1990). Local and National Influences in the Violence of 1965. In R. Cribb (Ed.), The Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966 (pp. 63-99). Clayton: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies Monash University.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21831/jss.v16i1.34715